Microsoft Announces More Internal Changes

The changes that are sweeping through Microsoft continued this week with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella revealing further changes in both leadership and corporate organization. He says the changes are designed to "tune" Microsoft's organization for maximum focus and impact.

"Today marks the start of another big week for Microsoft as we gear up for the Build conference in San Francisco," Mr. Nadella writes in yet another email message to employees that was published publicly. "In advance of Build, I want to highlight three announcements about how we're continuing to evolve and tune our organization for maximum focus and impact."

First up is Scott Guthrie. About two months ago, Mr. Guthrie was assigned as acting leader of Microsoft's Cloud and Enterprise organization as part of a sweeping set of leadership changes at the company. (Those previous changes included the exits of both Tami Reller and Tony Bates.) Now, Mr. Nadella has promoted Guthrie to Executive Vice President of the Cloud and Enterprise organization, so he's staying on fulltime. "As a leader, Scott has shown incredible energy and insight into how we create technology that others can build on, and which can be built on what others have created," Mr. Nadella writes in the email.

Meanwhile, former Nokia CEO Stephen Elop will indeed be joining Microsoft as Executive Vice President of the Microsoft Devices Group, and he will report directly to Nadella. This needs to wait on Microsoft's purchase of Nokia's devices and services businesses, which is expected to conclude sometime in April.

Finally and perhaps most dramatically, Nadella also revealed that Microsoft will combine its Xbox and Xbox Live development teams with the Microsoft Studios team. This new Xbox group will be led by Phil Spencer, who will now report directly to Terry Myerson, who runs development for all of Microsoft's client OSes, suggesting that the Windows/Xbox One ties are indeed as close as many had expected. "Phil will lead the Xbox, Xbox Live, Xbox Music and Xbox Video teams, and Microsoft Studios," Nadella writes. "Combining all our software, gaming and content assets across the Xbox team under a single leader and aligning with the [OS Group] team will help ensure we continue to do great work across the Xbox business, and bring more of the magic of Xbox to all form factors, including tablets, PCs and phones."

On a related note, Nadella notes among other appointments that Mike Angiulo, previously a prominent fixture in the Sinofsky Windows regime, "will continue leading Xbox hardware." But he doesn't mention that Antoine Leblond, another victim of the Nadella and Myerson purges, has apparently left the company after 25 years there. We're seeing this happen with more and more of the Sinofsky acolytes. Recode says Leblond is leaving Microsoft effective today.

Nadella closes with a call to action, similar to his exhortation two months ago that the senior leadership team needed to be "all in" on the strategy.

"I've discussed with the Microsoft leadership team the need to zero in on what truly makes Microsoft unique," he writes. "As I said on my first day, we need to do everything possible to thrive in a mobile-first, cloud-first world. The announcements last week, our news this week, the Nokia acquisition closing soon, and the leaders and teams we are putting in place are all great first steps in making this happen."

"There's a lot of work ahead of us and I am counting on every single one of you to bring your 'A' game every single day," he continues, lest there be any confusion.

Discuss this Article 15

so is devices and services out and we're now "mobile first and cloud first"?

I guess this means: android/iOS first and by cloud he probably means all the services will be ported to those platforms? basically if you're in the windows division, you probably should start looking at glassdoor

It's worth pointing out that he's spent time in Silicon Valley and he fits in more in some intangible ways than the old guard ever did. It's not for nothing that he's appearing business casual - the main photo when he became CEO was in a hoodie, for BGates's sake!

Also, there's a fascinating article out there about silicon valley ageism and fratboy shenanigans, exemplified by Zuckerberg's facebook, of course. Anecdotally, I've totally noticed even Wired magazine falling into douchebaggery more often. I like the website better, but they've definitely lost their irony and sense of perspective. It's a real gilded age over there, tech's byzantine era has begun and cloud feudalism is not far away.

"Mobile first"--this sounds like investor pablum, and I hope it is. This article makes it hard to gauge where Microsoft is going. All I am certain of is that if Microsoft runs away from desktop Windows computing you can stick a fork in 'em, 'cause they're done.

xBox and Windows have--what?--in common. Can't quite parse that one. Nadella will be much more of a Rube than I had hoped if the simple fact that the people who buy PC games *don't want console ports* is not apparent to him. It certainly isn't a state secret. This re-organization doesn't necessarily mean that Microsoft isn't aware of the facts, of course. Still, how you rationally group Windows with xBox is beyond me at the moment...;)

Gee, I dont know... How could you possibly rationally group Windows with Xbox?!? Could it perhaps be games that they have in common? And pretty much a common architecture?
(At least when it comes to XBone hardware and DirectX)

Oh yeah! That would be it!

And it certainly looks like PC gamers like a lot of the same games that consoles have. Just look at the popularity of the CoD/BF/FIFA franchise.

You make (some of) the same games for both platforms, they share hardware and software plumbing (in the form of Direct X)... Now tell me again I. What world it DOESNT make sense to combine the two groups?!?

Let's see...could it be the fact that Windows does far more than simply run games? Or, how about the fact that Windows supports exponentially more hardware than the very limited selection available in xBox? Windows is an ocean; xBox is a puddle.

But, if you want to go even further here, there are many computer games that run on Windows PCs in resolutions and model polygon counts, etc., that xBox cannot run at all & many Windows games aren't available for xBox at all. If gaming is all you want to talk about.

Seems like Microsoft is moving along a lot faster than the small part of their user base, who are still hopelessly stuck in a desktop computer/Windows world...

And good for them! If they can make the transition to mobile and cloud first, they have a bright future ahead of them.

I mean sure, there will still be desktop and laptops 2-3 or 5 years from now. There'll just be less of them, and they'll be a minority. Especially desktop and laptops with Windows on them.

The majority of computing will be done on other devices: Phones, tablets, wearables...

Microsoft will be a perfect candidate for delivering services to many of those, and to run the cloud that drives them. Satay Nadella can see that, and that Microsofts future lies not with Windows, but with services. Services that in many cases will run on Apple or Android hardware.

The desktop is dead. I'm frankly surprised that many of you can't see that.*

*Not dead as your grandparents-dead. Dead like mainframe-dead. There still are plenty of them humming along in basements of companies and universities, they're still needed and fulfill important needs, but few people today ever see one or use one, and it has little to do with computing as the vast majority of us understand it.

Bet the Windows and Xbox developers are putting their resumes in at Apple and Google; its clear Nadella has given up on Windows and lacks the vision to do anything other than try and hop on the coattails of Apple and Google; within a few years MS will be nothing but some also-ran office suite developer, just like Corel.

No, the desktop is far from dead - its just not the growth, money-maker it used to be. Office jobs will still be done on a desktop for the foreseeable future. People still need big monitors, mouse and keyboard.

I do agree that the desktop is not where MS needs to focus. They also need to not abandon their own mobile devices. They may be far behind at the moment, but if they can be the primary cloud service people use, it will be natural to use those core services you rely on with a Windows device.

This is very positive, what it does is put the user interface and OS in charge of everything else. This has just made Terry Myerson the guy calling the shots. He is the guy who deep sixed the loser Windows phone strategy for the new one and made the Nokia deal happen.